Well, the Olympics start today - yes, I know it's only some preliminary round Women's Football matches and that the Opening Ceremony isn't for another two days yet, but I thought I should at least start a thread early.

Been looking forward to this ever since London was announced as the hosts back in 2005. Have both weeks off work and a bunch of tickets, plus plan to watch it all on TV when I'm not attending any events.

My girlfriend is pumped for the gymnastics. We both are looking forward to diving. I encourage people to check out the table tennis as that is usually insane. I am also curious to see how Bolt does. While basketball is intriguing the future Mrs. Whiskey isn't a huge fan so I'm not sure how much of that I'll get to see. I learned in the last olympics that boxing is not as interesting in the olympics since you don't get to see many KOs (though last time I did see a body blow KO that was pretty impressive).

NBC seems to use the most graphics tricks for the aquatic events. Swimming gets the mobile world-record lines and pop-up name at the race's end. Diving gets multiple-exposure still shots and telestrator images like we'd get during pro football. Even gymnastics doesn't get those bells and whistles.

I have no problem with Jordyn Wieber missing the cut on the all-around. She's the world champ, but she didn't win the US Olympic trials. Gabby Douglas did, and Gabby seems to have won Jordyn's spot. Bela Karoli was livid, saying the top-ranked gymnasts regardless of national representation should get an automatic bid for the all-around. I disagree. If you don't bring it for the Olympics, you can't move on to the medal rounds. Jordyn stumbled. (So did Gabby. She went completely out of bounds in the floor routine. But still ...)

I do fault NBC for milking her suffering. Jordyn stood in the background, trying to compose herself, as another US all-around qualifier talked of her joy over making the cut. That was brutal.

I enjoyed archery more than I expected. Same with fencing. The dramatic tactics to influence the judges are fascinating.

Actually I don't think the on-screen graphics are NBC's doing - we get them on the swimming on the BBC as well, so I think it's automatically inserted into the international feed that all stations take.

Got to agree with you on the archery and fencing. I had tickets to both this weekend and while I was interested to see them, I didn't expect to come away having enjoyed myself quite that much - especially the team archery competition, which was really intense!

While I'm here, can someone from America explain to me why all the US news outlets show the medal table in order of total medals, while the rest of the world orders it by gold first, then silver, then bronze? It's like saying all three medals are equal in stature, which is clearly not the case. All the silvers in the world do not equal one gold in my book.

Originally posted by WhitebaconShe finished fourth in the qualifying. The person that finished 28th gets to go on to the next round, but she doesn't.

I agree with this being unfair. The 4th, 12th, 21st (a Brit, incidentally), and 22nd-place finishers were disqualified via that rule and replaced with the 25th-28th finishers. That seems extremely opposite the whole point of competing.

However, this isn't the first time that's happened.

In truth, this is nothing new. Just look back four years. In the qualifying round for the all-around in Beijing, Russian Ksenia Afanasyeva posted the sixth-best score, but was the third-best Russian. She watched as a Belgian – whom she outscored by 3.650 points – competed in the all-around, and finished last.

1. The second best part of the Badminton suspensions is how it totally screwed up the women's double bracket. After eliminated teams were called back and some upsets in the quarterfinals, the four teams going for the medals are one usual suspect (the Chinese team everyone was trying to avoid) and three countries - Russia, Japan and Canada - who have never won a Badminton medal. China's going to win, but having new countries win medals and suddenly care a bit more about a sport is a great thing...except it's probably going to be overshadowed by how they got there.

The best part is the highlight video of the first thrown game. As long as you're not paying to be there, it is hilarious. It's fantastic bad Badminton, you have to take 3 minutes and see it if you haven't.

2. I kind of cringe when Phelps is billed on TV "the Greatest Olympian Ever" because I feel that should be a debatable argument and not something solely based on number of medals. ("Most Decorated" is fine, though maybe the horses would say neigh.)

The upside of this record is it got me to wikipedia Larisa Latynina, the previous most medal count leader and I now have a new favorite historic sports figure. She was part of the gold medal gymnastic team in 1956, 1960, and 1964, with a lot of individual medals along the way. Three Olympics in a row is impressive, but winning your third goal medal at the age of 30 in *gymnastics* is crazy. Obviously things have changed since then, but that still is Cy Young winning 500 games amazing. And, to top that, Latynina's wikipedia page mentions she won the 1958 world championship while four months pregnant! How do you even do that?

3. NBC, I could read Facebook updates and Twitter posts for you a lot cheaper than Ryan Seacrest. I would not be as devastatingly handsome, but think of the money you could save. It'd pay for two more Community episodes, at least.

4. The worst part of the delay is not being spoiled, because I really am enough of an adult that I could stay off Twitter and not be spoiled if that was what was important to me. The worst part is all the stuff happens during the day in my time zone, and (all appearances to the contrary), I actually have to work then. By the time I can really watch the games, all of the other subchannels have stopped broadcasting stuff to layout for NBC. A lot of the hidden fun of Beijing (and Athens, IIRC) was watching handball at 2AM. There's nothing on except the primetime repeat at 2 AM this year, and I haven't gotten to see one handball game on my TV. I hope I can count on Brazil to run events at odd hours - and since it is Brazil, that's a safe bet.

The funniest part of the delayed coverage is the slowly and completely fake darkening background behind Costas to exactly match the US East Coast, despite it actually being pitch dark by the time NBC prime time goes on the air.

5. Nothing cuts the athletes down to size like the photos the Olympics made them take for ID photos and the website. Everyone's seen the Phelps one, but the women's gymnastic team, star of often repeated glamorous music videos on NBC, look instead like your average somewhat bored teenage who just want this line to move a little faster so they can go hang out with their friends.

Originally posted by thecubsfan4. The worst part of the delay is not being spoiled, because I really am enough of an adult that I could stay off Twitter and not be spoiled if that was what was important to me. The worst part is all the stuff happens during the day in my time zone, and (all appearances to the contrary), I actually have to work then. By the time I can really watch the games, all of the other subchannels have stopped broadcasting stuff to layout for NBC. A lot of the hidden fun of Beijing (and Athens, IIRC) was watching handball at 2AM. There's nothing on except the primetime repeat at 2 AM this year, and I haven't gotten to see one handball game on my TV. I hope I can count on Brazil to run events at odd hours - and since it is Brazil, that's a safe bet.

Us west coasters get a double-whammy of spoilers...one set when the live action happens and another when the east coast broadcast happens. I have serious concerns that come 2016 they are going to AGAIN delay things for the west coast to air in prime time, because 4-8 isn't going to be suitable for maximum ad revenue.

The WORST part of the NBC broadcasts is the fake drama...typified by their coverage last night of the women's team gymnastics. The USA KILLED everyone, but the juxtaposition of events the way NBC presented them implied that it was far less than the foregone conclusion than it really was when the US girls took to the floor for the last event. And that's because Russia's World Champ crashed and burned in the floor exercise before the USA went, but NBC didn't show that to us.

I mean, it's one thing to show parents in the stands (which is overplayed, at best) and to ONLY show American athletes at all times (which is stupid - more sports, LESS talking about sports, please!), but to make up the story as if an alternate reality is happening is inexcusable, really. I wish CBC still had the Canadian coverage because I could be watching it on CBUT.

Holy fuck shit motherfucker shit. Read comics. Fuck shit shit fuck shit I sold out when I did my job. Fuck fuck fuck shit fuck. Sorry had to do it....

*snip*

Revenge of the Sith = one thumb up from me. Fuck shit. I want to tittie fuck your ass. -- The Guinness. to Cerebus

Originally posted by thecubsfanThree Olympics in a row is impressive, but winning your third goal medal at the age of 30 in *gymnastics* is crazy. Obviously things have changed since then, but that still is Cy Young winning 500 games amazing. And, to top that, Latynina's wikipedia page mentions she won the 1958 world championship while four months pregnant! How do you even do that?

That's awesome.

There is a Malaysian shooter who competed in one of the air rifle events in these Olympics while eight months pregnant. Shooting while pregnant isn't quite like doing *gymnastics* while pregnant, though.

I mean, it's one thing to show parents in the stands (which is overplayed, at best) and to ONLY show American athletes at all times (which is stupid - more sports, LESS talking about sports, please!), but to make up the story as if an alternate reality is happening is inexcusable, really. I wish CBC still had the Canadian coverage because I could be watching it on CBUT.

Just a couple posts ago I commented on how great the commentating has been because of the drama. How quickly that went away with exact reasoning that you highlighted.

I still stand by loving the selling of the drama of the sports I don't typically follow. That's probably why it works. Simply because I'm not exposed to it....not that I'm truly exposed to gymnastics every day. It's just that' gymnastics is the one sport in the Summer Olympics that gets the insane amount of exposure.. They exploit it like these girls are destined to be the next Nadia or Mary Lou without providing real substance. Not to take away from the girls. The problem is 100% the story that the commentators are choosing to tell.

Originally posted by thecubsfanThe best part is the highlight video of the first thrown game. As long as you're not paying to be there, it is hilarious. It's fantastic bad Badminton, you have to take 3 minutes and see it if you haven't.

I can't decide if this or Venezuelan Woman* Squealing At Boxing has been the best moment of unintended hilarity of the Olympics. It's probably a tie.

Originally posted by thecubsfan2. I kind of cringe when Phelps is billed on TV "the Greatest Olympian Ever" because I feel that should be a debatable argument and not something solely based on number of medals. ("Most Decorated" is fine, though maybe the horses would say neigh.)

Yeah, I take nothing away from Phelps (who is awesome) but it helps that swimming offers a kabillion different events and associated relays to win medals at compared to other sports.